Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

The past two earned media assignments I led for clients were enhanced significantly by the use of Twitter hashtags.

As part of the media outreach strategy, Asher Agency recommended using a Twitter hashtag (one was in place and the other we created) to give all stakeholders and our agency’s staff a rallying cry to tweet, retweet, like and reply to others about the key messages and calls to action.

We started promoting the use of the hashtags early in the planning process, reminded allies throughout the media pitching phase and used it often in thanking reporters and publications/networks that ran our stories. The hashtags also helped easily track media coverage and created a healthy dialogue that continued well after the issuance of the news releases.

My Asher colleague in both projects, Faith Van Gilder in our Fort Wayne, IN, office, tweeted photos and messages both during the media conferences and throughout the day. She also forwarded photos with suggested tweets to client stakeholders during the day for them to post on social media. Asher’s experienced digital team tracked the results online and supplied the analytics below as part of the project summary.

American College of Sports Medicine American Fitness Index – #FitCityIndex

At 12:01 a.m. May 18 the ninth annual American Fitness Index (AFI) was released by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the Anthem Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Anthem, Inc. Washington, D.C., closely followed by Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver, were the three fittest of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S.

The annual AFI data report — http://americanfitnessindex.org/report/– has proven to be a valuable assessment and evaluation tool to educate community leaders on the importance of key indicators of physical activity. Leaders can then focus on policy, systems and environmental change strategies that are evidence-based and create sustainability for the community.

Therefore, media coverage and community engagement using the annual AFI results has grown each year. USA Today, The Washington Post, the Today Show, all television networks, the Weather Channel, local newspapers and websites, broadcast networks, IHeart Radio, and dozens of health/fitness and business websites, academic institutions and others digest the AFI and report its diverse conclusions and recommendations.

National Physical Activity Plan Alliance – #ActivityPlan2016

The new U.S. National Physical Activity Plan (NPAP) was unveiled April 20 at the National Press Club, building upon the initial plan that the NPAP Alliance released in 2010 as a roadmap for actions supporting and encouraging physical activity among all Americans.

Russell Pate, Ph.D., chairman of the nonprofit NPAP Alliance, presented the plan, which was validated by speakers from the American College of Sports Medicine; American Heart Association; Tennessee Department of Health; President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition; Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute; and Joan Benoit Samuelson, Olympic gold medalist. All of these people and organizations enjoy a huge social media presence and followers.

The website offering the full 2016 National Physical Activity Plan — http://www.physicalactivityplan.org/index.html — lists the #ActivityPlan2016 hashtag that continues to be utilized in discussions about the plan, its elements and utilization. We webcast the Press Club release event, so that triggered questions from the media and general public using our hashtag. It greatly enhanced our media coverage from the new release and our pitching the story. Our partnering organizational partners and representatives from nine societal sectors – business and industry; community recreation, fitness and parks; education; faith-based settings; health care; mass media; public health; sport; and transportation, land use and community design — all leveraged the hashtag to share their participation in the new U.S. physical activity plan. The hashtag usage ramped up again as we organized a standing-room-only Congressional briefing to share the new U.S. plan and promote Members of Congress committing to employ physical activity policies on Capitol Hill.

For all of these reasons, we strongly encourage the use of Twitter hashtags as an essential component of promoting news announcements, communications and advocacy campaigns and events. #ashernewsandblog

————————————————————————–Mike Fulton directs the Washington, D.C. office of the Asher Agency (www.asheragency.com) and teaches a master’s level course in Public Affairs for West Virginia University’s Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) program. Connect with Mike at mikef@asheragency.com,@hillrat1156 or on LinkedIn.

I think it’s safe to say that #Integrate15 brings out the Top Tweeter in all of us. This year was no different. The combination of selfies with President Gee, great presentations, and the social media contest propelled Tweeting to a whole new level, which included a top spot on the local trending charts. Fellow blogger Julie Long and I went through and found a few Tweets that really captured the conference experience.

Marketers have to balance getting data for those special touches with the need for privacy.#integrate15

Being a twenty-something is tough… on your skin. At least, that’s the connection Origins is making in an effort to reach women in their 20s with its #QuarterLifeCrisis campaign.

Origins is pushing a new skin renewal serum to twenty-somethings through its Quarter-Life Crisis social media campaign.

The skincare company has embraced the “tongue-in-cheek quandaries” used by the target market on platforms like Twitter to guide its witty approach to the campaign that is designed to promote the launch of the brand’s Original Skincare Renewal serum.

#QuarterLifeCrisis

Scroll through Origins’ Twitterfeed and you’ll find quirky, relatable content with humor that is worthy of a retweet.

Does this campaign have longevity, or will it grow old quickly with millennials?

I’m guessing I wasn’t the only IMC student whose favorite part of the dress debacle involved seeing how brands capitalized on its viral hashtags. You can view some of the best brand tweets here, but I’ve also included some favorites from my Twitter feed below:

Fans of the ABC modern fairytale show loved seeing character references of Snow White and Mr. Gold (Rumplestiltskin) connected to #TheDress.

What did I spend my Saturday night doing? Well, in between class readings and discussion posts I decided to re-organize my Twitter feed by updating my lists. I’ve used Twitter lists in the past, but my feed needed a mid-winter cleaning. I felt like I was seeing content from the same accounts all of the time and was missing great information.

If you’re new to Twitter, afraid of Twitter, or just need a reminder…Twitter Lists are a fun little feature that allow you to organize the people you follow. Twitter Lists make your life easier for a variety of reasons and my top 5 are listed below (in no particular order).

Looks out for the little guy – The median lifespan of a Tweet is approximately 18 minutes. It is absolutely unrealistic to read every Tweet that flitters across your stream. Lists help organize content so that you have an easier time seeing content from people who Tweet less than every 18 minutes.

Helps you find good content – A great feature of Twitter lists is that you can subscribe to lists other people make. Subscribing to the lists that your trusted contacts create helps you find more valuable people to follow. Here’s a great WVU IMC list by Thomas Armitage.

Organizes the people you follow – If you’re like me, you’re constantly looking for Twitter accounts that share valuable information. I often see articles that featuring the top 50 people to follow for this reason or that reason, but after I follow them I forget why I did. Organizing the people you follow by content area allows you to easily remember why you’re following someone and what content they bring to the table.

Bridges online and in-person relationships – You can also create Twitter lists for conferences that you’ve attended so that you can better manage how and where you meet people off-line. I have a list of Higher Education colleagues that I’ve meet through various conferences and events.

Helps with Twitter chats – Twitter chats are a great way to build relationships online and learn more about a particular topic. Twitter lists can help organize contacts so that when you’re participating in Twitter chats it’s easier to filter information. You’re never going to keep up with ALL the Tweets, but lists can help make the content more digestible and less overwhelming.

I will admit Twitter doesn’t necessarily make it easy to build lists. I had to go through all of the people I was following and add them to lists individually. You can do this by clicking on the gears icon and selecting add to/remove from lists. After a while, I had to take a break because I was repeatedly given error messages. The process is a bit time consuming if you’re trying to organize a large number of accounts. I highly recommend creating and adding to lists as you go.

To view your lists, click on your icon in the top right corner of the screen.

Twitter is a great resource and knowing how to manage it will help you get the most out of your Twitter experience.

I finally joined the Twittersphere (@Julie_Long_)! In my short time on the platform, I have complained to a brand, participated in my first tweet session, and most importantly followed others. As I continue to learn and navigate the intricacies of tweeting, I am reminded by the fleeting nature of communication. With just 140 characters at your disposal you have to tweet succinctly. Less is truly more. What I have found to be both an opportunity and a curse is that Twitter forces you to think differently about how to construct a call to action. The idea of finite content is not a new idea by an means. The gray area surrounds the integration of content across channels. Everyone can tweet and tell a story, but only those who truly understand integration will be able to realize a return.

One person that seems to understand finite content is Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vaynermedia, who is a proponent of “micro-content.” The micro-content revolution might just be around the corner. Thankfully, I joined Twitter, which affords me the opportunity to “micro-blog.” Being able to build campaigns around the “micro” and the “macro” point of view will help to make me a diversified IMC practitioner.

Not only do you need the writing and strategic mind to master the art of micro-content, but you also need the confidence. Fortunately, thanks to Twitter, I learned about a free webinar that will help you build your online confidence.

Make sure that you sign up! Gary Vaynerchuk just happens to be one of the presenters and you will be a first hand witness to his dynamic presentation style!

I sat down to write the top things I learned after hosting the 2013 Association of College Unions International Region 8 Conference this past week and was sidetracked when a student emailed me. She was doing some research and entered the conference hashtag (#acui8) into HashTracking to analyze the results. I’d heard of HashTracking before, but it had completely fallen off my radar and onto the my long list of things to look into when I have some time. (Right below Flipboard and above the list of professional development books I’d like to read.) Since that email my day has been derailed diving further into the insights provided by HashTracking.

Every week the Student Affairs Blog sponsors a Twitter chat (#SAChat), so I decided to track the chat via HashTracking. It was very interesting to look at the results. From this information organizers can tell how many people contributed, how many Tweets were composed, what percent of tweets were original or retweets, and what systems were being used to access the chat. I caution against putting too much emphasis on the reach of the tweet and timeline deliveries because tweets have very short shelf lives and those measurements can be misleading – especially during a Twitter chat.

Another great aspect of tools such as HashTracking is that you can also listen to what customers are saying. Account managers can get a better feel for where their company name is popping up and what is being said about it. Many of these tools don’t just measure hashtags, but also words and phrases. Below are some of the analytics from the #SAchat session on November 21, 2013.

If you’re planning an event I highly recommend establishing a hashtag early and setting up HashTracking. (You can sign up for a free 30 day trial and then move onto paid options if you utilize a lot of hashtags.) Because we didn’t set up tracking prior to the conference, we weren’t able to fully analyze the results. The system doesn’t work very well going back in time. We were also able to set up monitors in two locations in the building that displayed live tweets throughout the conference and we displayed the live tweets during receptions and prior to keynote speakers. It was a great way to encourage interaction with other conference attendees via Twitter and see what attendees were talking about.

In addition to using HashTracking, I’ve been having some fun with Tagboard. Tagboard is great because it allows you to monitor conversations across multiple platforms. You can see what people are saying about you and where they’re saying it. This provides you with the opportunity to see which social networks your customers are on and if you should or should not join. Tagboard is a great listening tool.

Twitter was a great resource for our conference and has been very successful in enhancing customer engagement for many companies. Though the metrics are still being developed, there are some great tools out there to start measuring hashtag engagement. Is anyone else using HashTracking or Tagboard?

Recently, the world lost an incredible man who changed the way we live our daily lives. Whether it be the computer we use at work or at home, the phone we use to communicate and connect with people, or the movies we go to see on our days off, Steve Jobs has had something to do with all of it. I was sitting at a restaurant having dinner when I received a few text messages on my iPhone about Steve Jobs passing away. In an instant, there were tons of articles, pictures, and tributes to the American genius. Most people did not even realize how much he had to do with all of these technological advancements that we now enjoy today. He had a huge impact on the tech world and will always be known for the amazing products that he made possible for us. Thank you Steve for all of my Apple products that I love and making all of our lives enriched with great, innovative technology!

Some of the new features from iOS5

Not only was the Twitter world exploding with tweets about Steve Jobs and his unfortunate death, but the iOS5 update for the iPhone was the thing to talk about. I added #iOS5 to my saved searches on Tuesday, Oct. 11 because I wanted to see when the update was released. I eagerly awaited the Oct. 12 launch of the software. There were rumors that it would be released at midnight but that was not the case. As I refreshed my tweets with the hashtag iOS5, everyone was let down that it was not there on as soon as it turned October 12th. Each minute, there were thousands of tweets about the iOS5 and there was so much anticipation about the 200+ new features that came along with it. This update is the most extensive update out of all of the operative systems that have been released since the launch of Apple’s iPhone.

There were a few problems that Apple ran into, as did I, during the launch of the iOS5. When it finally arrived, there were so many people who were trying to upgrade at the same time that there were errors all over the world. Over half of the people who were trying to upgrade could not do it because of this error. Of course, I was one of the individuals who had this internal communications error and was very frustrated with this whole situation. After calling AppleCare and them telling me that I will probably have to get a new phone, I looked to my social media outlets to get some more information. On my Facebook news feed, I saw that a ton of people were having the same problem. It relieved my worry that there was nothing wrong with my specific iPhone and that it was just an overwhelming amount of people trying to get the software at the same time. I found this article that explained the whole communication problem.

Although the experience was rather complicated and frustrating, considering I had been waiting at midnight for the software to launch and it didn’t release till 1pm, it was well worth the wait. One of the best features that this update includes is the integration of Twitter with the phone. This shows the worldwide importance of social media and how it is integrated into our lives every day. If you have not see all the iPhone features, here is a video of the new iOS5 software and what it has to offer its users.